They schooled their opponents in the county election, but on Thursday, Hamilton County’s new commissioners took their seats in the classroom.
Joe Graham in District 6, Tim Boyd in District 8, Jim Fields in District 2 and Chester Bankston in District 9, all elected on Aug. 5, attended an orientation hosted by County Mayor Claude Ramsey at the Martin Luther King Jr. Human Services Center. There they met dozens of county department heads and officials.
“I feel underdressed,” Boyd said, wearing an orange-striped polo shirt. “I didn’t know how formal this was going to be. I’m looking forward to working with the freshmen class of commissioners.”
Boyd was sworn in Aug. 12 so he could represent District 8 when the county passed its budget. The seat had been empty since May when former Commissioner Curtis Adams left to take a job as city manager in Crossville, Tenn.
The others will be sworn in Sept. 1.
All four newcomers are Republicans, giving the commission a 7-2 Republican majority.
The meeting, which took place at 10 a.m., was the second Thursday for the commissioners-elect. The first happened around 9 a.m., and the media and public were not invited.
The commissioners-elect said afterward they met with the county attorney, who instructed them on basics such as when to speak during a meeting.
County Attorney Rheubin Taylor said that because three of the commissioners-to-be haven’t taken their oaths, the meeting did not have to be public.
Frank Gibson, executive director of the Tennessee Coalition for Open Government, said, “It’s a very gray area” whether the first meeting complied with the state’s Sunshine Law.
“(They) can argue that, since they haven’t been sworn in yet, they can’t deliberate toward a decision on any matter and cannot take any action because they aren’t legally in office yet,” he said.
That was the position of two of the new commissioners, as well.
“It was private,” Bankston said. “We are not officially commissioners yet.”
Graham referred questions to Taylor, adding, “We’re not sworn-in commissioners yet.”
Taylor said the commissioners-elect didn’t discuss any legal matters that would fall under attorney-client privilege during the session.
When asked why a meeting on commission procedure would be closed to the public and media, Taylor said, “there wasn’t a need” to invite them.
Much of the public portion of the meeting was a meet-and-greet with the many facets of county government with which commissioners will be working. Department heads described what they do, and the room erupted in laughter several times as the two groups got to know each other.
Ramsey, just elected to a fifth term, said he still doesn’t know everything there is to know about county government. He said the county has a “good staff” spread out over several areas. But to a person, he said, they understand their mission.
“The mission of county government is to serve the public,” he said.